Refer with Your Pinky, Not Your Index

During the Iran-Iraq War there were many indirect codes to be deciphered. Among them were the messages sent by the Iranian army to Iraqis.

As Iraq was a secular state, the army was well trained to be systematically ruthless and have no mercy for the enemy. The Iraqi military would randomly attack, firing missiles arbitrarily into different neighborhoods as a way of maximizing civilian causalities and causing terror.

On the contrary, Iran, as a religious state, had more merciful tactics. The Iranian military would focus their attacks on a single location over a period of time at regular intervals.

For example, they would fire a single missile into an area, and then take a short break to leave time for people to flee or take cover. Then the bombardment, scheduled routinely for a certain time of day, would be concentrated in a specific area of about one square kilometer. After a few weeks they would change the target to another neighborhood. This was a form of communication between the Iranian army and the Iraqi people.

I found another use of form without intent to harm when talking to workers who removed mines in Iraq. They would very often find mines that were buried by the Iranian military, but that were never armed to detonate.